I really enjoyed looking at your blog. You have a great garden! Maybe one day I will start my own vegetable garden.
One thing at a time. Loved the wanted posters and bunny!! Dittos on the blog. We grew some cantaloupe from seeds a while back and they grew, but the flavor was terrible. Good luck with them. Meredith, I have learned so much from you.
Thank you. Hey, I did a little research on your red bug. Plug in the name Hemipterans Pictures into Google search and it brings up pictures similar to the one you posted. I guess there are several different varieties, but I saw pictures of those like the one you posted. Hope that helps! What I need to find is a local entomologist! Thank you for searching for me. One time I ran across someone else trying to find out the same exact bug, but it was never identified, either.
I might do that anyway, until I know better, HA! Greetings, I just happened upon your site while googling for cantaloupe info and found it very interesting!
You have lovely photos as well. I am growing cantaloupe for the first time this year and am starting to get fruit…and starting to get nervous. So, I was wondering how yours turned out?
I have mine in a box as well with a fence behind it for trellis and these things are growing like mad. I have about 15 fruit so far ranging in size from softball to golf ball. I have read people suggest making hammocks from panty hose to support the fruit hanging on the trellis as it gets larger and am wondering if you found you needed to do this and if so, do you have any pictures?
If you do, would you mind posting them? And again, great site! Well, my cantaloupe were both wonderful and terrible at the same time. I had a great experience growing them, and I got several large and beautiful cantaloupes.
Plus I learned soooo much. They were huge plants. However, I knew they would taste bad because I grew them from the seeds of a store-bought cantaloupe, and I learned belatedly that those are usually hybrids and not ones to use for seeds. Then I got lots of aphids and sooty mold, which was also ok because I used the cantaloupe as a trap for the aphids and kept them off my pumpkins. Let me know how they turn out!
Very helpful even though it took a while to find a female. Is it possible that i dont have any male flowers on my canteloupe? I am in west florida, and I am successfully growing green peppers, cucumbers and corn in this same g arden.
Beth, I definitely went through a period with my pumpkins where I had only male flowers blooming and, then female flowers without males. It was quite nerve-wracking, but eventually I had some open at the same and rushed to help with the pollination. With my canteloupe, I had males only for a long time before the females finally started to appear. If you have only females with the little ovaries visible , perhaps you can find someone with male flowers that you can borrow for pollination?
I almost had to do that myself. I thought I was reading my own account of yesterday in the world of cantaloupes except for talking to them. Your pictures of the male flower are exactly what I need to proceed with manual pollination. Great info and an enjoyable read. Thanks, Mark! You have a great blog!. How did they turn out? Hi, Maria. The timing sure can be frustrating with the males and females, but it might have something to do with temperature. With patience, those males might show up!
You and me both, Maria — I would love to garden on a bigger scale, but first I need to be better about watering consistently. They're easy to distinguish, because male blossoms have a thin stem while female blossoms grow at the end of a thicker bud which becomes the melon. Insects normally pollinate the blossoms adequately, but if there's been a morning rain to keep the bugs down the flowers only pollinate in that first morning or if a neighbor has sprayed indiscriminately with pesticides, you can hand-pollinate by taking pollen from the male flowers with a small paintbrush, and transferring it manually to the center of the female flowers.
As the blossoms drop, note the date on your calendar and then count forward 35 to 45 days to your expected harvest, and mark that date as well. The melons are ready to pick when they're full-sized, smell sweet and musky, and — in the case of cantaloupes — slip easily from the vine. If frost threatens, nearly mature melons will soften and mellow after they're picked but won't reach their full sweetness.
You can extend their season with the use of row covers, cold frames or similar shelters, which allows them to ripen more fully on the vine. Fred Decker is a trained chef and prolific freelance writer. Home Guides Garden Grow Vegetables. By Fred Decker Updated January 25, Related Articles. Crimson Sweet Watermelon Pollination.
Cantaloupes ripen 35 to 45 days after pollination, depending on weather conditions. The skin turns from green to creamy yellow-beige, the surface "netting" becomes rough, and the tendrils near the fruit turn brown and dry. Experts advise you to not wait for the fruit to fall off the vine. Instead, watch for signs it is ready to be harvested, then gently twist the fruit from the stem. It should slip away easily. If not, stop and let it ripen another few days.
Cantaloupes do not ripen once they are removed from the vine. Grocery store cantaloupes that still have little stems attached were harvested too early and probably won't be very sweet. The word cantaloupe actually refers to two types of muskmelons, including the one most commonly grown in North America and a European cantaloupe, with light green skin. Not all muskmelons are cantaloupes. More Melons! Learn How to Grow Watermelon. By Deb Wiley August 03, Save Pin FB More.
Grow Cantaloupe. Cantaloupes produce separate male and female flowers as well as some flowers with both male and female parts.
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